“You have asked me to help you, Eleanor,” he said, gravely; “if I am to do so, you must have some faith in my counsel. Wait until we have fuller power to prove our case, before you reveal yourself to Mr. de Crespigny.”
Mrs. Monckton could not very well refuse to submit herself to the scene-painter’s guidance. He had already most decisively demonstrated the superiority of his deliberate policy, as compared with the impulsive and unconsidered course of action recklessly followed by a headstrong girl.
“I must obey you, Dick,” Eleanor said, “because you are so good to me, and have done so much to prove that you are a great deal wiser than I am. But if Mr. de Crespigny should die while we are waiting for further proof, I——”
“You’ll blame me for his death, I suppose, Mrs. Monckton,” interrupted Richard, with a quiet smile, “after the manner of your sex?”
Eleanor had no little difficulty in obeying her counsellor, for when Gilbert Monckton met his wife at dinner, he told her that he had been at Woodlands that morning, and that her friend Maurice de Crespigny was daily growing weaker, and was not expected to live through the early spring months.
“The old man is fading slowly away,” the lawyer said. “His quiet and temperate habits have enabled him to hold out much longer than the doctors expected. It is like the gradual going out of a candle, they say. The flame sinks little by little in the socket. You must go and see the poor old man, Eleanor, before he dies.”
“Before he dies!” repeated Mrs. Monckton, “before he dies! Do you think he will die very soon, then, or suddenly?”
“Yes, I think he may go off suddenly at last. The medical men say as much, I understand.”
Eleanor looked at Richard Thornton.
“I must see him, and must see him before he dies,” she said. “Is his mind unimpaired, Gilbert? Is his intellect still as clear as it was a week ago?”